Green Gloves
by Lady Paprika
Summary: There's nothing more painful and beautiful than reveling in the anguish of a lost one. Let us mourn together and let us weep for those who have the courage to stay alive and press on. For SSG3's Singing Smashers Contest as well as DaZeLinker's. The T is for swear words. A heavy dose of angst. That's it, really.


**Green Gloves**

**Lady Paprika**

**For the following songfic contests: SSG3's as well as DaZeLinker's.**

**Song used: Green Gloves by The National**

**Curse words bumped the rating up to a T.**

**I don't own rights to the cover art. It belongs to Caysi who's on DeviantArt.**

* * *

Luigi considered himself a master of reading people's feelings. But today, facing the man opposite to him, he wasn't sure. Strange really, considering that the person in question was none other than his brother and shouldn't Luigi, as the empathetic brother, understand his sibling the most?

So he said nothing. He simply waited and tried his hardest to fight the silence because for whatever reason, Mario wanted the silence to stretch along a thin hair, that much he could tell. His own throat was constricting rapidly and he was scared that nothing, not even a sharp needle could slide down it at this point. And if he swallowed to make it better, Mario would hear what Luigi was feeling and what he was thinking. He didn't want that.

In their tiny, shoddy apartment, Luigi was straining to listen to anything but the deathly silence. He concentrated on the gentle hum of the air conditioner, of the white noise that pierced his ears, of anything that would otherwise be nothing of great importance.

It was only an hour later that Mario finally spoke as if he'd been snapped out of a trance. His eyes looked normal, and that was the problem.

"Don't tell Peach."

* * *

"He's cheating on me, isn't he?" Peach's shrill voice cut clean through Luigi's nerves. The soft indie song playing in The Coffee's Hand did nothing to relax the plumber as he regarded her.

He forced himself to speak and when he did, he was proud of the voice he managed to give himself. "Don't be absurd. This is Mario we're talking about."

"Then _why_ is he avoiding me? He's going to break up with me soon, right? I _am_ right, right?" Not for the first time did Luigi wonder what Mario had ever seen in her. She was loud, obnoxious and she somehow managed to make everything about her. Like right now.

"I don't know, why don't you talk to him about it?"

"I would, if we saw each other for more than five minutes!" Peach's mouth pressed tightly into a thin, flat and lipsticked line. "For the past week, it seems like he's too busy for me. That's why I asked to meet up with you." Her eyes narrowed in on Luigi, as though seeing him for the first time. She studied him for one whole minute, her mascara-coated lashes nearly touching the bottom ones.

"Careful Peach, you might develop some crow's feet on that perfect face of yours," Luigi said dryly in response to her scrutiny.

Normally, Peach would have snapped at his withering reply. Not this time. She wanted answers and she wasn't going to be distracted unless she got them. "You know."

"Know what?" But they both knew that what he'd just said was meaningless; both of them were aware of what she was referring to.

"Something horrible's happened, hasn't it?" No longer was her voice that of an untamed shrew. Now it was low, hushed and... worried? And it was the first time he'd heard this sort of worry coming from her. Luigi looked up from his wallet - a rather worn out birthday present from Mario about seven years ago. It had once been a vibrant green, but now it looked faded and threadbare. He looked up at Peach's heavily made up face and realized he couldn't keep lying to her forever, not when her jaw had suddenly gone slack and her eyes looked like clouds did right before rain.

Luigi's first response was to bolt - He wasn't good with people. He hated them and tried to avoid them as best as he could, largely because he found them surprising. But before he could get up, she placed a well-moisturized hand on his gloved one. For the first time - And he'd known Peach for seven years - he could see a little bit of the beauty that Mario saw in her and now he knew with absolute certainty that he couldn't lie.

But he didn't have to tell her the truth. It was already charted all over his face.

"He's going to die." A statement, not a question.

"Everybody dies someday, Peach." And it wasn't an answer. But it was enough for both of them.

Even though Peach probably made a hundred times more than his meager salary, he fished out a twenty dollar bill and placed it on the table. He figured he was too poor for words. What the hell could he say anyway?

He stood up, sliding his hand away from her's. "I'm sorry."

"Don't."

There it was again. Looking at her hurt just as badly as looking at his brother who was essentially a dead man walking. But maybe they all were dead people walking, with every single step just an inch closer to death. So it shouldn't matter, not really.

But it still hurt.

* * *

Predictably, Mario was livid but he tried unsuccessfully not to show it. "Why did you tell?"

"She guessed. You should have told her from the start." Luigi was tired of not addressing the things that needed to be addressed. He was tired of acting like he didn't care. Instead he tried to imagine what their conversation should have been like.

"Now she's mad at me!" _I have a malignant tumor that's wrapped around my heart and it is spreading at a rapid rate. Even the slightest bit of arrythmia is enough to finish me off. Even if I had the money, surgery would be useless._

"When wasn't she mad at you? Didn't she say you were boring, ugly, and constantly holding her down?" _Aren't you scared?_

"She never means it. Someday, when you get yourself a girlfriend and have dated out of your league, you'll understand." _I'm never scared. That's why you look up to me, right? Because you're a wimp. A coward. So I have to be strong enough for the both of us. See?_

"The only way she's out of your league is that she makes more money than you. She's rotten on the inside." _No, I don't see. I don't see it at all. Damn it, Mario, you're making me angry._

"Say that one more time and I'll deck you and kick you out of this apartment." _I'm not making you angry. _You're _making you angry._

Mario coughed slightly, wincing as he did so. The angina was getting worse. Luigi knew that getting him angry was dangerous. The stress could cause him to go under cardiac arrest and Luigi needed Mario alive for as long as possible. His reasons were selfish, but he supposed that everybody's reasons for wanting their loved ones alive was selfish.

His just happened to be far more selfish. So he backed off and tried to change tack. "You still owed her the truth." _That's ridiculous! Why would you say that? I hate you for saying it.__  
_

Mario sighed. His eyes did not quite meet Luigi. "I know," he said in a low voice and for the first time, he could hear the color of regret in his brother's voice. Luigi thought that the regret somehow encompassed everything else that Mario could be regretting. He no longer had the luxury of thinking that there were just countless days stretched ahead of him.

_I know. But I love you._

If only those words were actually spoken.

* * *

There was one night where Mario had stayed up watching old tournament DVDs of theirs. He laughed uproariously at the time when Captain Falcon accidentally threw himself off the stage not once, but _three _times in a match against Ike. He actually yelled at the screen in shock when he saw Donkey Kong land his huge wind up punch squarely against Bowser. Luigi watched him carefully out of the corner of his eye throughout the marathon. He was more interested in the way the TV's light reflected off his brother's face. He was more interested in how Mario's face seemed open and alive.

It was during the match with Game and Watch versus Falco, that Luigi saw the tears fall. At first, his eyebrows knit together, as if he was genuinely confused that Mr. Game and Watch had transformed into an octopus. But then his shoulders began to tremble. His eyes got wet. His chin quivered. That was the worst part.

And when the first tear finally managed to slide downwards, Luigi couldn't bear it anymore. He shut the television off and for a minute or two, only watched Mario heave his chest, trying so hard to keep the tears in. It was like watching a dam slowly burst open and it was horrifying to watch. Mario fought for control and finally, he swallowed and it seemed that he was gasping for air.

"Do you remember that time we first entered Super Smash Brothers?"

Luigi bit his lip, almost telling the truth. But he changed his mind at the last second because he had a feeling Mario _needed_ to say what he was about to say. "No."

Mario shook his head and scrubbed his forehead with his hands, obliterating Luigi's sight of his face. "I don't know why I'm thinking about it. I had such an awful time trying to convince you to enter."

Luigi was silent, waiting for his brother to continue on.

"I don't know why you always made my life so difficult. Every single time I wanted to do something, you always raised hell about it."

It was the last thing Luigi wanted to say, but he also knew that he had to say it and it was now or never. "I never wanted you to leave me behind."

Mario's grin lifted the corners of his mustache upwards. "You thought I didn't know that?"

Pressure rose within Luigi, like great waves. Luigi compelled them to stay down for his own sake. "I... I don't know..."

"Idiot. Of course I did. Why else do you think I pushed you to do everything with me?" He was frowning now, more to himself than his younger brother. "But now I realize what a big mistake that was."

"Why?"

"Because," Mario said. "Because I made you follow my footsteps. I shouldn't have done that. I forced you to live in my shadow."

"You didn't force me." He swallowed dryly. Why was it so hard to talk to the only person he had found it easy to talk to? "I forced you to do it."

Mario curled his lips inward. Luigi saw his Adam's apple bob once. Then - "I could have stopped that. You should have been your own person."

Now Luigi was confused. He laughed, despite the shitty situation they were both in. "I _am_ my own person."

Mario shook his head. "People compare you to me all the time. Don't think I don't spot it. It's because you're always with me."

For a minute they were both silent. Luigi contemplated saying good night.

"Don't," he said, sounding very much like Peach had at the cafe. "Don't come on after me. Don't stop living because of me." And before Luigi even knew what was going on, Mario had placed his hands on either side of his own long face. For a heartbeat, they just stared at each other. Any other time Luigi would have been creeped out, might have even thought it was incestuous.

But it was none of those things. There was nothing creepy about this. Mario leaned forward and placed his lips on Luigi's forehead. It was the kind of kiss that one would question whether it actually existed or not and when Luigi lay in bed that night, he tried to convince himself that it had happened.

The next morning, he realized it was a stupid thing to think about. His brother never woke up and he realized that there were more important questions to be asked.

Questions that didn't have any answers and probably never would.

* * *

Poetically speaking, the tumor had choked his heart and had eventually stifled the blood from going in and coming out. It spread and consumed Mario in the only way a cancer could. Luigi would stare at the tombstone later on and almost laugh at the irony. What had killed Mario wasn't the slow death of his body - It was the fact that there was too _much _life there.

Every single Smasher was present and all of them cried. Luigi cried too, but the tears didn't seem real. They seemed like a preconditioned response to whatever everybody else was going through.

Marth solemnly declared that Mario was the most honorable Smasher ever.

Not to be outdone, Zelda said that Mario had, "The most excellent leadership qualities she had ever seen."

The others clamored for their own stories of Mario. There had been that one time where he had helped Link write a love poem to Zelda. And who could forget that time he'd won the hot dog eating contest and subsequently vomited all over Samus afterward? They all laughed and then Olimar brought up the time Pikachu accidentally electrocuted him instead of Wario who had been trying to sell the Pokemon. Remember how he always seemed to have the time for everybody? That was Mario all right.

And all the Smashers smiled, proud that they knew and loved him.

All of them, with the exception of Yoshi, Bowser, Peach and Luigi seemed to have something to say. Luigi was surprised that Bowser and Peach hardly said a word. He had been expecting Bowser to brag. Peach for once, did not make anything about her. She merely looked subdued, just another face in the background.

Luigi was one of the first guests to leave. He supposed it was indecent, but he was too tired to think about what was proper and what wasn't. He discovered that he wasn't the only one who was tired. When he arrived at their - now his - apartment, he saw Peach attempting to clean all the dirty dishes piled up in their sink.

"Why are you here?" His voice was devoid of all emotion. "You should go home."

"I have no home." Her voice too was a blank sheet of paper. "I came here because..." she paused stupidly. "Because I was searching for a ring."

"He never told me he was proposing to you."

Peach shut the sink off. Droplets of water trickled down the drain. "I know he probably wasn't thinking about it. But I still... I don't know. It was stupid."

It was only now that Luigi realized how disheveled the apartment was. All the cabinets and drawers were open, the throw pillows on the couch were on the floor, and magazines were scattered on the floor. "How long have you been here?"

She dried her hands on a dry wash cloth and began to shut the cabinets and stack the magazines on the coffee table. "I came back almost as soon as the funeral was over. I didn't feel like staying to talk." That explained why Luigi had completely missed her presence for most of the time he'd been there. "Then I realized that you probably hadn't done the dishes in awhile. So I came here instead." She sounded strange now, as if the threads in her voice were beginning to unravel.

"Go home, Peach."

She glared at him, kneeling over the magazines. It was a glare of pure hatred. "Don't you get it, idiot? My home is _dead_. I have nowhere else to go. He's gone and I..." Quite suddenly the hatred shifted into something else, both softer and more raw at the same time. "He's _dead, _Luigi. I can't... I can't speak to him anymore." Her voice faltered. "What am I going to do? I can't..." she left the sentence open.

It was the same question Luigi had been wondering all along. What indeed would he do now that Mario was dead? He stooped forward and touched Peach on the shoulder. She took it as an invitation to throw herself into his arms. For a moment, all he could smell was sharp, expensive perfume as well as top-notch hair spray and product. And then he smelled the salt of her tears, the bitter lemony tang of her skin, the scent of fresh laundry. For a moment, she seemed remarkably human.

It took the death of his brother for Luigi to see that Peach Toadstool was human and what was more, she was damnably like him.

He giggled. He was going insane just thinking about it but Peach did not question why, she only sobbed harder. And that, more than anything else, made Luigi grow angry. Because how dare could Mario leave them both this way?

And how dare could he have let himself become so attached to him?

Mario was dead and it never hit him so powerfully that his brother would no longer be around to insult him. He wouldn't be around to watch any basketball or tennis with him on TV. Mario wouldn't aggravate him into trying anything new because Mario wasn't gone. He hadn't passed and he wasn't in a better place. He was _dead.__  
_

So he sat there and with his chin resting on top of her blonde hair, his giggles somehow turned into tears. He finally began to cry.

* * *

If you were to ask Luigi how the year following Mario's death had passed, he would probably wouldn't know the answer himself. The truth was, Luigi hardly ventured outside his apartment and let absolutely no visitors in. For the first few weeks the Smashers had knocked on his door until their knuckles had turned bloody. They had slowly given up and left the trays of macaroni and cheese, lasagna and sweets at their - his - doorstep. They determined he was still alive when the next morning, the trays were all gone.

Peach never came back after her break down. Tired of modeling, she switched to acting. There was big talk that her new movie - _Shrooms_ - was going to be nominated for many Oscars and Peach herself would get nominated for playing a woman going through withdrawal symptoms. Luigi watched her interviews sometimes on the television. She never mentioned Mario, but she _was_ apparently going steady with Marth. That was a complete surprise. And yet at the same time, it wasn't.

He told himself that she had never cared about Mario after all and that's why she never brought him up. It was a lie he told himself to make himself feel better. But he never believed it.

Luigi wasn't sure what he was clinging onto anymore and sometimes, the thought that he might be going mad would flit across his mind when he caught himself using Mario's aftershave or shampoo. Some nights, he would crawl into Mario's bed and curl up underneath his covers and try to smell him. If he smelled him, it was as close as he would ever get to his older brother.

Those nights he dreamt strange and wonderful things. Sometimes, he dreamt that he was dying, sometimes he dreamt of their mother. Above all else, he dreamt that he was discarding red clothes and putting on green gloves. These dreams left him feeling the happiest, though he did not know why.

He wandered around the apartment, listening to Mario's music, cooking Mario's favorite food. He wondered what he was doing. He wondered why he was still alive.

Maybe he wasn't really alive though, Luigi would think to himself as he cut up a ripe tomato. Maybe it was Mario who was alive and it was he who was dead. The thought of this made him stop slicing, tomato juice dripping all over his hands and wrists.

It was strange thoughts like this that made him quietly slide a knife back into its holder, lick the juice off, and order Chinese take out.

Because despite this never ending limbo of nothing, Luigi was still afraid. It was silly how the worst bit of him - the cowardly, pathetic bit - still hung on when everything else had left him. He felt terribly disjointed.

* * *

Eventually there was one morning that Luigi woke up and decided that today would be the day he would go outside and maybe do some grocery shopping.

Unfortunately - or maybe it was fortunate - he ran into somebody who he almost didn't recognize.

"Luigi? That you?" A laugh.

"You look like shit!"

"Is that a beard?"

It turned out that Red, Diddy and Donkey Kong were room mates and lived in the apartment complex across the one where Luigi lived. "I thought you moved," Red said.

"I did." It wasn't a complete lie. He was rusty, and the conversation wilted a few times with a few halts here and there, but he thought that DK and Red must have enjoyed his company.

He supposed if they hated him then Diddy wouldn't have said, "Listen, tomorrow, there's a banquet. You know, a Smash Reunion type thing. Everybody's going to be there, so you should come too."

"I'll think about it."

It was better than saying no. Luigi watched them walk away and fought back a sigh.

That night, he shaved, flossed, brushed his teeth and bathed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd done any of these things. He looked at the only suit he owned but he had gained a moderate amount of weight that past year and it didn't fit him anymore. So the next morning he went out and bought a tie and even a light green button down shirt to wear underneath a suit. He swam through the streets in a summery daze, hardly aware that this was the first time he had gone shopping for something besides food.

It was only when he came home and stared at all of his purchases that he realized he might have found it exciting, even pleasant to go outdoors. He showered again, taking care to use his own shampoo and soap. He shaved using his own aftershave.

He dressed up, went to his room to put on his green gloves and to slip the final thing in his pocket that he needed to complete the night he was to have. He wasn't sure why he took it along with him, but something told him to do so.

And then he took the cab to the hall where the night awaited him.

* * *

It was harder than he had thought. He had walked in with mixed feelings. The Smashers all stared at him at first and he was glad he'd worn the gloves - his palms were slick with sweat. He realized with cold fright that he did not have Mario to hide behind. Funny how it had been nearly a year and Luigi still had those moments where he suddenly remembered that Mario was really dead.

He wondered if the Smashers thought he was dead too. But then Jigglypuff smiled widely at him and the tension was broken somewhat. The silence evaporated, a few Smashers waved, but nobody went up to him. He realized they were all afraid to talk to him and now that he didn't have a shadow to hide behind, he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself. Twice, he attempted to talk to Wario but his fat cousin simply waved him off. "You're scaring off the business opportunities," he said gruffly.

Some things never _did _change despite everything Luigi felt he was going through.

He felt sick and as he reached for more champagne, he realized it was a very bad idea to come here. Even though everybody had resumed their chatter, he could _feel _everybody's eyes on him and he realized that he hated it. Did they expect him to drop dead on the spot or cry or...?

He wasn't going to do any of those things, not with them standing around. Why was everybody so scared?

His own hand was trembling so badly. Were they scared that _he _was scared?

"I didn't think I'd see you here." And like magic his fear evaporated, replaced by white, hot irritation. He turned to face her flawless face, a perfect mask of make up. Was it possible for her to be even more beautiful in person than on camera? It irritated him to no end.

"_You're_ here?"

She laughed, a sound that sounded like tinkling bells. "Don't be ridiculous, Luigi. Of course I'm here. _I'm _not the one who's been hiding, after all."

He fought to stay composed as he eyed her. "You dyed your hair and cut it. Nice, Peach."

She waved a hand carelessly. "I don't go by that name anymore. The press refers to me as Daisy now."

Luigi arched an eyebrow. "So I guess I'm not the only one who's been hiding."

Peach's face flushed deeply - In that moment her face emanated a radiant sort of darkness. "What is_ that _supposed to mean?"

"I think you know."

Her silence confirmed the truth of his statement and for a moment, he felt bad for relentlessly attacking her. After all, everything that had happened wasn't her fault. For a moment, they both sipped their champagne and Luigi figured that it was now or never.

Bitterly, he slipped his hand into his pocket and began, "Peach, remember why you came at my apartment the day of Mario's funeral?"

"No." It was the same sort of "no" Luigi had given to Mario the night before his death.

"You said you were searching for a... a ring. But you didn't look everywhere. You didn't search my room."

A line had formed between Peach's eyebrows when she finally deigned herself to look at Luigi. "What are you talking about?"

"Mario _was_ planning on proposing to you. But he knew you'd look for it because you're obnoxious and impossible, so he hid it in my room because he knew you'd never check there." Luigi finally extracted the object - a size five tarnished gold ring with a tiny little diamond set in the middle. It was nothing pretty to look at and in fact, the ring that Peach currently wore on her index finger was probably worth a hundred times what this ring was worth in terms of dollars.

But for a moment, Peach was speechless and Luigi was pleased. Her face was expressionless as she extended her left hand. "Do you dance?" She expected him to put the ring on her. He fought the urge to roll his eyes as he reminded himself that she did after all, make everything about her.

Luigi felt incredibly ridiculous as he took her hand and slipped the ring on. For one brief moment, he wondered if he'd ever do that someday to a girl he loved. The ring was a was a perfect fit and when he tugged his hand away, he was surprised to see that she'd held on. "Well, do you?" she persisted.

He shrugged.

"Look," she said in a low voice. "I know you're uncomfortable. You can feel them staring at you and you want them to look away, but guess what? They won't. So you might as well _enjoy_ it and give 'em something to talk about."

_Peach's philosophy in a nutshell,_ Luigi thought to himself wryly.

"Now are you a good dancer?" she persisted

He swallowed, feeling the smooth muscle in his throat tighten and then relax as he did so. "I'm the best slow dancer in the universe." Another lie. He looked off to the empty dance floor and felt his insides shrivel up.

She knew the lie too, but she played along. "Good. And for the record, I am _not_ obnoxious."

"Yeah, whatever."

As they glided across the dance floor - her as graceful as Cinderella in a pair of glass slippers and he as clumsy as a frog in his green gloves - she smiled at him slightly. Everybody looked openly at them now, but at this moment all he could see was her and somehow, it wasn't even about Mario anymore.

"Why are they green?" she asked, tilting her chin towards his hands.

He shrugged, and tightened his grip on her waist slightly as he contemplated the question.

"Why not?"

And that was good enough for the both of them.

* * *

**A/N: Nobody will ever understand how much I agonized over finding the right song and right plot which is probably a sign that I shouldn't enter songfic contests especially since I don't think I did justice to the scenario or song. I should point out that there is only one lyric I included in this songfic. I initially was not going to include any lyrics at all, but there was a part where I couldn't resist. It's when Luigi says, "I'm the best slow dancer in the universe," and it comes from the song, "Green Gloves" by The National. I do not own rights to anything, so please don't kill me and report this because then I will curl up into a ball and die because I shed sweat, blood, and sleep over this and I will be sad if it is deleted.**

**Thank you for reading this.**


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